Oh, Christmas Tree

Imagine a cold, winter evening with snow flurries blowing through a field of fir trees.  Imagine one of those trees beautifully decorated, though no one is there to see it.

For this project we are going to paint this imaginary scene.   Seeing decorated Christmas trees, one of the first signs of the season, always puts me in the Christmas mood.  I hope the same for you.

Supplies:

• Black construction paper
• Craft or poster paints: White, blue, two greens and yellow
• Artist brushes:  I used #12 and #16 flats
• Toothpick or tip of sponge for snowflakes
• White glue
• Sequins
• Glitter spray:  I used silver

Our picture will be done using the horizontal position of the paper. Using the # 16 artist brush and white paint, dry brush stroke over the black paper to represent blowing snow.

On the bottom one fourth to one third of the picture, paint mounds of snow.  With a bit of blue mixed with the white, add shading.  Paint a round moon shape with white.

I would suggest having some scraps of paper for the kids to practice the techniques on before painting.

With the #12 brush and a mixture of green and white paint, pounce the brush on the paper to make  small, distant trees.

 

 

Using the pouncing technique to make the trees, paint in  the more distant trees first.  Overlap those trees when making the closer trees. I found that it was easier to keep the size of the tree if I pounce painted the shape first, and then pounced the inside of the tree.

 

 

 

Trees are all painted in this photo.

 

 

 

Add falling snow flakes.  Use a toothpick or a corner of a sponge.  Keep a real light touch.

 

 

Using white glue, dot areas on the nearest tree and add colored sequins.

 

 

 

Spray the finished picture with silver or iridescent glitter spray.  It’s hard to see the difference on the photos, but adding the glitter spray makes for an outstanding winter  scene.

 

Christmas Projects Gallery: